In the early 1950s, after the Chinese Communist Party sent troops to help North Korea defeat South Korea, U.S.-led U.N. troops entered the Korean peninsula and pushed the Chinese Communist forces back to the “38th” line. Since then, there has been a standoff between the two sides in the 38th parallel. Both sides eventually agreed to negotiate.
This was because, on the one hand, the U.S. was strategically focused on Europe and its main enemy was the Soviet Union, so it was not willing to keep a large number of its troops on the Korean Peninsula for a long Time, and it was beginning to fight against the war at Home, and other countries were no longer willing to send troops to join the UN forces; on the other hand, the Chinese Communist Party and North Korea had suffered huge losses and were willing to seek peace. Negotiations between the two sides began in July 1951 and took two years to reach a cease-fire agreement.
Most of the Chinese Communist prisoners of war were unwilling to be repatriated
On the issue of POW repatriation, the CCP and the U.S. clashed. The Communists demanded that all captured “volunteer” POWs be repatriated, but the U.S. repatriated them on a voluntary basis. It turns out that during the war, many Chinese communist soldiers sought opportunities to surrender voluntarily to the UN forces, and a significant percentage did so. Of the more than 21,000 Chinese soldiers captured by the UN, 14,325 refused to return to Communist-ruled China with a resolute attitude of “no death”.
U.N. documents contain records of entire trains of Chinese POWs being transported from the front lines to Daegu without any escort, with no one escaping on the way. U.S. POW supervisors at the time recalled that the most frequent request made by Communist POWs during that time was that we be issued weapons and allowed to fight our way back home.
Some sources indicate that these Anti-Communist Chinese POWs were predominantly former KMT army officers and soldiers who had been surrendered or received conversions. According to the book “Group Behavior in Combat and Captivity,” two-thirds of the more than 10,000 anti-Communist POWs had worked in the KMT military and government departments, but the other one-third belonged to the “red root” group. The main reason for their reluctance to be repatriated is the harsh policy of brainwashing and other measures the Chinese Communist Party has implemented in the military to destroy human dignity, and their fear of being treated unfairly upon their return to China.
The Chinese Communist Party’s coercion and seduction of POWs
The fact that only one-third of the POWs were willing to return to China was a major surprise to the CCP. Disgraced, the Communists accused the UN of forcing the POWs to go to Taiwan. According to the armistice agreement, POWs who did not want to be repatriated had to be transferred to a neutral camp for another 90 days with a representative from the Chinese Communist Party to “explain”.
The Chinese side insisted on individual one-on-one “explanations” for the POWs. According to national reporters, the shortest individual explanation lasted 75 minutes and the longest was 153 minutes. During the explanations, the CCP representatives and the POWs repeatedly answered the same question, “Where are you going?” and even used threatening phrases that violated the rules of interpretation, such as “Taiwan will be liberated soon” and “Chiang’s gang will be finished. The explanation even used threatening phrases that violated the rules of interpretation. Some delegates even made jokes like “Taiwan has been liberated”. As a result, the Swiss and Swedish delegates frequently protested against the inhumane behavior of the delegates who tortured the POWs for a long time, and repeatedly suspended the explanation by withdrawing from the meeting.
In order to encourage the POWs to return to China, the Chinese delegates even brought beautiful women with them to the tent, and every time they met a POW, the woman said, “As long as you return to China, I am willing to form a Family with you,” while some POWs jokingly shouted, “I want sister Lan Ping. The name “Lan Ping” was Jiang Qing’s former stage name.
According to the regulations, after the explanation, the POWs had to choose one of the two doors to leave the tent. The Indian delegate, chairman of the Chinese repatriation committee, explained in English which door corresponded to repatriation, but the Chinese interpreter translated “repatriation” as “willing to go back”. Some POWs did not understand whether the word “return” meant to go back to their home country or to Jeju Island, and yelled for an explanation, while the Chinese interpreter asked the Indian chairman to forbid the explanation, and if there were UN observers to explain, they were expelled from the tent by the Indian chairman.
After the 90-day explanation period, only 440 POWs, or 3 percent of the total, returned.
POWs return home “once they enter the abyss, they suffer like the sea”
Those Chinese POWs who did not want to be repatriated were eventually sent to Taiwan, and most did well, or at least ended up well. Those who returned to China after believing in the CCP were not only censored many times, but were also the targets of many campaigns.
It is reported that there were two batches of POWs who returned to China: 6,670 who repatriated voluntarily at the time of screening, and 440 who came back to China after explanation. The information that has been released so far basically concerns the whereabouts of the first group of POWs, while the whereabouts of the latter group are unknown.
The first group of POWs were welcomed in Kaesong, and once in the country, they were held at the Changtu “Volunteer Army” Returnee Administration (the former UN POW Administration). From mid-November 1953, the political examination began, and the whole process was divided into mobilization and Education, examination and confession, conclusion, and resettlement. The POWs had to explain their problems and reflect on them. The POWs had to start meeting to review and atone for their sins, writing checks to reflect on their surrender. However, the Division was more lenient on the issue of party membership, and by February 1954, 80% of the POWs were reinstated to the party and military.
In March, after the Gao Rao “anti-Party” group, the central government issued a document requesting that 95 percent of the POWs be expelled from the Party and caucus, and that those who behaved well be recognized only for their military status before being captured. As a result, most of the POWs were repatriated to their hometowns and became bad elements. After the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, most of the POWs were again severely criticized, and many of them could not stand the torture and killed themselves. I will give just one example here.
Xiao Feng (note: a native of Jiangyou, Sichuan Province, whose father was the vice governor of Jiangyou County and died in a tragic way during the Cultural Revolution) wrote an article entitled “A Private Chronicle: My 1978” in which he described what happened to his uncle, a POW of the “volunteer army”, after he returned to China.
Xiao Feng’s uncle was a soldier in the Sichuan Army when he was young. In 1949, his unit surrendered to the Chinese Communist Party and was sent to fight in Korea as a “volunteer”. In the Communist army, he was trained as a party activist and had a position equivalent to a sergeant. Later, during one of the battles, he became a prisoner of war for the United Nations.
In the POW camp, uncle was among the staunch returnees, refusing to have his tattoo tattooed with anti-communist writing. He was also one of those who raised the red flag when they were repatriated after the armistice. But as soon as these returning POWs crossed the Yalu River and finished the handover, the Chinese Communists dragged them to a camp in the mountains and checked them repeatedly, one by one. After a severe inspection, no defection was found in the uncle, so he was sent back to Jiangyou, where he was first placed in a ferry management office and later worked as a road maintenance worker. Compared with those who were sent back to the countryside, uncle was still very lucky.
However, in the subsequent campaigns, uncle became the target of rectification, none of which was spared. He was often asked by the “revolutionary masses” to undress in public to show his tattooed anti-communist writing, as many Chinese POWs had it on their bodies. Those who had tattoos were shameful “soft-boned, death-averse people” and were beaten! He took off his shirt, there is no, then take off his pants, take off only the underwear, still no, which means that is sent back to infiltrate the secret service, was beaten more powerful.
In this way, uncle was tortured for decades. After the end of the Cultural Revolution, uncle also asked for the implementation of the policy, but to no avail.
Conclusion
Like Xiao Feng’s uncle, the fate of the more than 6,000 Chinese POWs who returned to China was already sealed the moment they stepped through the gates. Perhaps, after their ordeal, their hearts still envy their comrades who wisely chose not to return to China. The fate of the unaccounted-for POWs was probably even more tragic. How can the Chinese Communist Party be described as “evil”?
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